Offering a Service Role to Those Needing Taxonomic Expertise

Offering a Service Role to Those Needing Taxonomic Expertise 

Schmitt and Wharton s emphasis on service to those requiring the special skills of taxonomists tapped into two themes regarding human resources and expertise. 

Second, this emphasis on promoting service roles spoke directly to many potential members. Taxonomists rarely lack a service role in their employment. More specifically, Wharton assisted the U.S. Navy in pest identification and control during the war. Schmitt watched innumerable consultancies under way at the U.S. National Museum. In postwar America, professional societies of biologists with service roles dwarfed those with predominantly academic interests. The interest in mixing practical diagnostic taxonomy with discussions of systematic principles also arose in the only newsletter produced by the Society for the Study of Speciation in 1940.  

By the middle 1950s this would lead to the Scientific Manpower Commission (Bates, 1965 195). The American Institute of Biological Sciences also became involved in manpower issues for the life sciences. 

The Ohio State University s Faculty Information Service October 5 1968 biography of Wharton emphasized his service to practical problems in parasitology. Thanks to Michelle Drobik (University Archives at Ohio State University) for this item and other biographical material. 

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